The present invention relates to computing and data processing, and in particular, to an adaptive tile framework.
The growth of mobile computing has placed nearly unlimited amounts of information in the hands of users. As the processing power of handheld devices continues to increase, and as the speed of wireless networks continues to accelerate, mobile device users are faced with the growing challenge of managing and organizing their computing resources.
Traditionally, the presentation of information on a mobile device has focused on static consumption. Many mobile applications present users with articles, music, and messages for consumption. Yet, as network connectivity increases, more resources traditionally found on a desktop system are becoming available on mobile devices. While this stands to create many opportunities, it has also created many challenges.
For example, there are many paradigm shifts that make mobile devices a challenging environment to work in. In contrast to traditional desktop systems, where a user may have constant access to a full keyboard, mouse, and possibly multiple large displays, the interface on many mobile devices is often much more constrained. Interface efficiency is often a critical requirement of a mobile device.
Additionally, network connectivity is another distinction between mobile devices and traditional desktop systems. In a desktop system, a computer is often connected directly to a network, which in turn, may be connected via high speed connections and standard protocols to backend servers or the Internet. However, accessing complex functionality that may reside on an external system using a mobile device is challenging because in many cases intermediate, and sometimes intermittent, networks and unique gateways are required to access typical backend systems. Further, given limited interface space available on many mobile devices, accessing feature rich backend services can be a significant challenge.